Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

Wingnut on Wingnut Crime: Keller vs the GOP

As much fun as our regular fundies are, the really loopy ones like Bill Keller are just a barrel of laughs. Keller, who bills himself as “the world’s leading Internet Evangelist,” seems to do little more than put out press releases taking his fellow wingnuts to task for not being pure enough — especially if they would vote for a Mormon. Here’s his latest:

Bill Keller, the world’s leading Internet Evangelist and the founder of LivePrayer.com, with over 2.4 million subscribers worldwide reading the Daily Devotional he has written every morning for 13 years on the issues of the day from a Biblical worldview, was horrified as he watched a Mormon cult member lead mostly Biblical Christians at the Republican Convention last night in a prayer to Satan, since Mormons do not pray to the God of the Bible, but to a mythical “god” they believe who was once a man!

Keller stated, “The founder of the Mormon cult, Joseph Smith was a documented convicted con artist, polygamist, pedophile, racist, and murderer, and in his greatest scam claimed to be visited by an ‘angel’ who led him to gold tablets in the Catskills. Mormons like Romney believe the Bible is a flawed and an incomplete book, superseded by Smith’s writings, the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, and Doctrines and Covenants.”

Keller goes on, “Mitt Romney, Glenn Beck, and all Mormons LIE that they are Christians, when their beliefs are in 100% contradiction to Biblical Christianity. They love to tout their charity and good works as Romney and his surrogates did at the GOP convention to influence people, but good works and charity do NOT make you a Christian, only faith in the Jesus of the Bible make you a Christian!”

He continues, “Those in the Mormon cult use the words ‘god’ and ‘jesus,’ yet the ‘god’ and ‘jesus’ of the Mormon cult are NOT the God and Jesus of the Bible! Mormons believe their ‘god’ used to be a human who rose to god-like status, just like Romney, Beck, and all Mormons believe they will too after their death. The ‘jesus’ of the Mormon cult is the natural offspring of their ‘god’ Elohim who had sex with Mary, meaning their jesus is a created being and NOT a deity as the Bible teaches, and is also the brother of Lucifer!”

Damn, this is fun to watch. This is also the guy encouraging people to write in the name of Jesus on their presidential ballots this year; I couldn’t agree more.

How did Keller overlook The Book of Abraham, written by Joseph Smith, which describes the planet Kolob where god resides?
Check it out on Wikipedia.
Meanwhile I eagerly anticipate the battle of, er, faiths, between Mormons and fundies.

Mormonism is more like Islam, says Southern Baptist president
logs. ajc.com/…/your-morning-jolt-mormonism-is-more-like-islam-s…

14 Oct 2011 – Mormonism is more like Islam, says Southern Baptist president … to what had been distorted in Judaism and Christianity [–a heretical position, …

The Southern Baptists, the largest Protestant sect, has an official position on Mormonism.

They aren’t Real Xians and they are all going to hell.

meaning their jesus is a created being and NOT a deity as the Bible teaches, and is also the brother of Lucifer!”

This is true. In Mormon mythology, jesus is the brother of satan. Which is no big deal. He is also our brother and the brother of the demons. Jesus is just a guy, a child of god like we, satan, and the demons are.

The god and father of jesus and us is also a natural born guy. He’s just been around longer and gotten his own planet and herd of goddess wives to play with.

He doesn’t even get his geography right. Smith didn’t find the tablets in the Catskills, or for that matter Staples. He “found” them about 250 miles northwest on Hill Cumorah in Palmyra NY, between Syracuse and Rochester.

He’s been Left Behind. The Christian Right and the GOP are not one group in the big tent of the other, they’re an amorphous blob, where each has infected the other, and the party is winning as it’s more, um, infectioner.

This is also the guy encouraging people to write in the name of Jesus on their presidential ballots this year;

Problem: Jesus doesn’t have a birth certificate!

But I am enjoying the schism. The funjelicals had a virtual smorgasbord of candidates who were their fellow travelers, even a couple of Catholics who spoke their language (And I guess could be considered “close enough” to being a True Christian ™ when compared to a Mormon), but they couldn’t settle on one single nut. So, the Mormon was able to squeak by.

Yeah, I remember when I was a young Southern-like Baptist, we had a an entire season of Sunday school lessons about the various fake-Christian cults, like the Mormons, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Roman Catholics.

That is why I was so surprised how in later years when the Protestant evangelicals allied themselves with the Catholics to make their hatin’ more efficient. I kind of remembered another early lesson of God smiting the Israelites when they allied themselves with a pagan nation rather than trust God.

Much, much later, I remember that a Seventh Day Adventist friend of mine was shocked, SHOCKED, when I informed him that back when I was a conservative Christian we considered his kind cultists.

In 20 or 30 years, as the number of very conservative Christians declines, a lot of the people Keller denounces today for making common cause with Mormons will be doing the same thing with American Muslims. They’ll find their agreements on things like gay people being horrible, and the need for women shut up and obey their men, are more important than silly things like whether Jesus is the Messiah or just another of God’s prophets.

A year ago Keller’s views were mainstream evangelical – Mormons were heretic cultists.

Amazing how religion evolves when its followers feel the need to get a black man out of the White House.

I disagree, conservative Christianity, as its evolved towards being more of a political-religious movement, has eagerly embraced religious groups they think are either going to Hell or are theologically un-Christian. We’ve seen them politically embrace Catholics, orthodox/Zionist Jews with a politically conservative bent, and Mormons. I have no doubt they’d have voted for Mitt Romney over Hillary Clinton [1] or John Edwards [2] in ’08.

Sure they’d prefer an evangelical, but consider how they failed to rally around Mike Huckabee in ’08, merely because he raised some taxes as governor of Arkansas to properly fund expenditures no one argued shouldn’t be spent. The trick to understanding conservative Christians is to realize their political beliefs and loyalty to the political part of the tribe is far more impactful on their behavior than their religious dogma. In fact I’d argue that no large U.S. group acts the opposite of the New Testament edicts on how to treat others more than conservative Christians, which also extends to both their policy positions and voting patterns.

1] Clinton is a Methodist who also used to be a member of the prayer group The Family which Ed’s reported on in the past.